There is growing interest in electronic commerce, whereby individuals and/or entities can transact business with other individuals and/or entities via interconnected networks, such as the INTERNET. Electronic commerce offers advantages to both buyers and sellers. With electronic commerce, a buyer may access many more sellers than could be achieved via conventional methods of face commerce. Thus, with electronic commerce, buyers can potentially achieve a lower purchase price, as well as a wider selection of goods and/and or services. By the same token, electronic commerce affords sellers a larger market place, and access to a larger number of buyers.
Much of the electronic commerce presently conducted between buyers and sellers occurs by the exchange of data in the form of graphics and/or text. Typically, a buyer seeking to purchase goods and/or services electronically initiates the transaction by first establishing a data link with the seller. For example, if the seller possesses a website on the World-Wide Web portion of the INTERNET, the buyer initially makes a connection via a computer, to an INTERNET Service Provider. Once connected, the buyer then enters the Universal Resource Locator (URL) associated with the seller to access that seller's web site. After the buyer has accessed the seller's web site, the buyer enters the information needed to complete the transaction.
Not infrequently, a buyer making an electronic transaction in the manner described, may wish to speak personally with the seller to ask a question or to discuss some aspect of the transaction. Heretofore, conducting a voice conversation with the seller, while simultaneously conducting an exchange of data (thereby achieving a "multimedia" transaction), has not proven convenient. In most instances, a buyer has to initiate a voice conversation on a telephone line separate from the line carrying data between the buyer and seller. Many buyers do not have the luxury of separate phone lines for voice and data and are thus unable to conduct a multimedia transaction.
Thus, there is need for a technique for conducting a multimedia transaction (e.g., a transaction in which voice and data are exchanged) across a single telephone line between two parties, such as a buyer and seller.